Benny Gold (L), CEO and founder of Benny Gold, shares a laugh with a group of skaters at the SOMA West Skate Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Monday, July 14, 2014.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Benny Gold (L), CEO and founder of Benny Gold, shares a laugh with...

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Top: Benny Gold takes a spin at the new SoMa West Skate Park. Left: The designer sketches in his office. Above: Gold's Instagrams, clockwise from top left: "It's an honor when people tattoo our logo/art on them"; "I am very proud of our flagship store in the Mission"; "It doesn't get better than my daughter walking my dog"; "Sketching new designs is my favorite part of what I do."

Photo: Courtesy Of Benny Gold

Top: Benny Gold takes a spin at the new SoMa West Skate Park. Left:...

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Benny Gold: "I am very proud of our flagship store in the Mission."

Photo: Courtesy Of Benny Gold

Benny Gold: "I am very proud of our flagship store in the Mission."

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Benny Gold sketches in his design company office in S.F.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Benny Gold sketches in his design company office in S.F.

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Benny Gold: "Sketching new designs is my favorite part of what I do."

Photo: Courtesy Of Benny Gold

Benny Gold: "Sketching new designs is my favorite part of what I do."

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Benny Gold: "It doesn't get better than my daughter walking my dog."

Photo: Courtesy Of Benny Gold

Benny Gold: "It doesn't get better than my daughter walking my dog."

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Design sketches by Benny Gold, CEO and founder of apparel and identity design company Benny Gold pictured in San Francisco, Calif. on Monday, July 14, 2014.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Design sketches by Benny Gold, CEO and founder of apparel and...

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Leather patches by apparel and identity design company Benny Gold pictured at the company's office.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Leather patches by apparel and identity design company Benny Gold...

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Benny Gold, CEO and founder of Benny Gold, leaps for an ollie while skating at the SOMA West Skate Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Monday, July 14, 2014.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Benny Gold, CEO and founder of Benny Gold, leaps for an ollie while...

Benny Gold, the CEO and founder of the eponymous San Francisco brand, is a rarity in his corner of the menswear world. In a crowded scene often driven by hype, flash and whichever rapper was last spotted rocking your hoodie, the graphic and fashion designer is a streetwear star whom you're more likely to spot getting coffee with his young daughter on Valencia Street than hobnobbing with marketing gurus at TED.

You don't set up your new office and warehouse in a former pawn shop on a seedy stretch of Sixth Street and paint "In Jah we trust, all others pay cash" if you take yourself too seriously.

Eric Rothenhaus, design director for JanSport and frequent collaborator, calls Gold, "the nicest guy I've ever met" and praises his "genuine authenticity." And on the eve of a Benny Gold art exhibit at the Agenda Show - one of the skate and surf world's most important trade shows in Long Beach - the opening Gold seemed most amped about was the new SoMa West Skate Park in the Mission.

"I went opening night and it was a mix of everybody, all ages," said Gold, who is in his late 30s, graying a touch at the muzzle, and clad in the fashion-forward streetwear he designs. "I went the next morning around 7, and it was a lot of guys like me, people with jobs who were looking to skate before going in."

That "job" started around 15 years ago in San Francisco. Gold, a native of Key West, Fla., received a degree in graphic design from Savannah College of Art and Design and had moved t0 San Francisco in 1998. He was working as a graphic designer doing work for big clients like Mervyn's and the Body Shop, socking away work that they rejected for some future use.

Gold designed the glider-plane image - perhaps the most enduring piece of iconography in the Benny Gold canon - and made a run of stickers that he slapped around town. Attached to the glider plane were two words: Stay Gold.

It's become something of a mantra, although at the outset it was a way to beat the creative doldrums of his day job.

"Stay Gold, for me, was this reminder not to lose sight of what I came out here for," Gold said. "I was caught up in corporate design jobs and I felt really uninspired.

"I had no idea that it would turn into a brand," he said. "It was just something fun."

Gold isn't Benny's given surname. He adopted the moniker with the Ramones in mind, creating a new identity unified with his brand. And like the Ramones, his family was quick to adopt the switch: His wife goes by Hiromi Gold and his French bulldog is named Levi Gold.

After a stint as the lead designer at Huf and creating one-off products for a number of years, Gold officially launched Benny Gold in late 2007. The company is now taking the step from indie darling to serious player. Gold estimates that four years ago his products were available in fewer than 40 shops domestically with one Japanese distributor. Today, the number is nearly 200, with several distributors filling accounts across Asia, Europe and Australia. The full product line ranges from a suite of graphic T's and caps, to locally produced button-downs, jackets, fleece, trousers, Japanese-made windbreakers, and accessories including skate decks and bags.

With an expression equally aw shucks and self-effacement, Gold says that Benny Gold is "on the cusp of being bigger than a small brand."

And just as quickly, he gives credit to his staff, his industry friends and mentors like Huf founder Keith Hufnagel and pro skater Jim Thiebaud, and to his wife and business partner, Hiromi.

"I never had a master plan," he said. "I don't have a master plan."

After hearing Gold talk more about managing his small staff - six at the office and four in his shop on 16th Street - helping them feel real ownership of the brand, "reading all kinds of crazy business books," and praising Hiromi for "kinda whipping the business into shape," it's hard to believe that he's operating just on feel. But if Gold does indeed lack a master plan, he's developed an enviable approach to his art and business.

Ken Davis, the sign painter for the exterior of his new warehouse as well as a handful of other projects in the Benny Gold archive, sums it up like this:

"His formula for success boils down to this: He started something that he's truly passionate about and has an iron-clad group of people to work alongside that are just as dedicated to growing. He's a really accessible person and is really grateful for what has come his way. People pick up on that, and in an environment where streetwear brands can breed ego, monotony and pretension, having a brand that is solidly based on just putting out good items with original ideas and making it fun for people to involve themselves with the brand is a sure win."

Rothenhaus echoes Davis' plaudits for Gold's passion. "He's hands on, and he's very deliberate. Not in a strong-minded, stubborn way, but he's got a vision and he's not someone who has to scream it."

The "positivity and good vibes" Rothenhaus sees have led to three collaborations with JanSport, the latest of which is a Benny Gold spin on JanSport's Right Pack, which swaps the usual suede bottom for a laser-etched piece of leather from the boot maker Red Wing.

"I designed the pattern on the bottom as an Art Deco-ish ribbon with the glider plane hidden in there," said Gold. "It's my Easter egg for fans."

It's initially surprising how often Gold refers to the people who follow his work and buy his clothes as fans and not customers. But it becomes clear that his relationship with everyone lining up to see the art show at Agenda, the 53,000 who track his work, family and weekly trips to the skate park on Instagram, and the international assortment that filters into his shop, isn't just commercial. And that's because in his heart of hearts, Benny Gold isn't a clothing designer. He's an artist.

"When Benny says 'fans' it's because he doesn't want people to buy his stuff because he makes stuff," said Rothenhaus. "He wants people to like what he does as someone who adds to the world."

Sitting in the dim basement of his new 5,000-square-foot office, surrounded by boxes of five-panel caps and graphic T-shirts, seated next to a pool table illuminated with a vintage Schlitz beer light, Gold came back to an idea we'd touched on earlier.

"I've tried so hard to be good at any size," he said. "And I tell people just starting out, don't be afraid of being small. Just be good whatever size you are. Just do good work.

"How do I take it to the next level and still have it be great?" he asked almost rhetorically. Then he half-answered his own question with something any hands-on maker must grapple with: "It's a lot harder to be big and good."